THE ECONOMICS OF WHALING 43 



is then attached round the tail connected to a steel 

 warp, and the whale is slowly hauled up the flensing- 

 slip by means of a steam winch. The animal is 

 drawn up on its side or back ; owing to the distension 

 of the abdomen by the accumulation of gases the 

 whale floats in this position. The flensing plane 

 has to be strongly built, since a sixty foot whale 

 weighs from seventy to eighty tons. 



The first process is the stripping off the blubber 

 " blanket." This is done by the blubber-flensers, 

 whose work consists exclusively in stripping off the 

 blubber and taking out the baleen. The blubber 

 is cut through along the mid-dorsal and ventral 

 lines, two cuts being also made on each side. 

 There are thus three strips taken off each side of 

 the whale. A chain fastened to a steel-wire rope 

 is attached to the head end of each of these strips, 

 the blubber being taken off from the head end 

 towards the tail by the assistance of a steam winch, 

 the flensers using their knives to ensure the blubber 

 coming off without the meat. 



The blubber is now cut up into manageable 

 blocks by labourers. The blocks are further 

 divided by a revolving circular knife ; and are thus 

 transferred into fairly small pieces into the boilers 

 as soon as removed from the whale. 



After the blubber is removed a " meat-flenser " 

 cuts off the whale's head, which is chopped up 

 separately. The carcass, from which the intestines 

 have been removed, is also dealt with by the meat 

 flenser, who strips the meat from the bones, the 



